Chapter 18
LOUIS
The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. — Thomas Hobbes
The restaurant wasn’t anything to get excited about.
Then again, it never was. You hide in plain sight. You disappear into the smell of frying chicken and steamed vegetables, into families laughing too loudly, children whining for dessert, the flush of a bathroom toilet down the hall. You hide among the normal.
The Vescovi family understood that better than most.
Something told me this wouldn’t be a long meeting.
I made my way to the back table marked Reserved by a small red sign and sat. A single glass of wine waited for me. In front of it, a folded card read: Drink me.
Well. Shit.
Guess introductions were optional.
I drained the glass.
It tasted like a poor man’s Italian red blend—too sweet, no depth, the kind of wine meant to disguise something else entirely. My stomach clenched almost immediately. The room tilted. My vision blurred.
Ah.
There it is.
I collapsed forward, my shoulder clipping the table before I hit the floor. The last thing I saw was a man standing over me, black gloves pristine against the cheap linoleum.
Perfect.
Minutes later—or maybe seconds; time was fuzzy—I woke to ice-cold water splashed across my face.
“Wakey, wakey.”
The voice carried a heavy accent.
I cracked my eyes open, expecting one person. Maybe two.
There were at least twenty.
All in black baseball caps and long peacoats. Some wore masks pulled high over their mouths and noses. Anonymous by design. Careful.
“So,” I muttered, blinking. “Is this a costume party?”
A boot connected with my shin.
I hissed. “Rude.”
“Congratulations,” the accented voice said. “You passed the first test. Didn’t choke on your own vomit. Woke up faster than anyone we’ve had in the past year.”
Good. The poison I’d microdosed earlier had done its job.
“It seems,” he continued, “you either knew protocol… or you’re built of stronger stuff.”
I shrugged as best I could from the floor. “So, what’s the second test? Since I passed the first one with flying colors?”
His eyes smiled. The rest of his face stayed hidden behind the mask. He seemed young. Too young to be this comfortable with violence.
He tugged the black gloves tighter over his hands. “We’re very selective about who we trust. Lucky for you, you know the right people. You could be… useful.”
He crouched slightly. “Except for one small problem.”
Of course.
“How do we know you won’t betray us?”
I nodded once. Fair question. “I don’t know. Make me prove it? Like every other idiot with a gun?”
His gaze hardened—dark brown, sharp, dangerous. “If word gets out about what we do—what we’ve done—the entire system collapses. And we can’t have that, can we?” He glanced behind him. “Can we, men?”
Interesting. No women.
I stayed quiet.
“There’s someone,” he went on, “making it very difficult to move product through the Seattle port. Any guesses who that might be?”
I almost rolled my eyes. “Take your pick from the Five Families. But the Petrovs used to control Seattle, so my money’s on Andrei.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s what we thought too. Which was a problem, considering his ties to both the Russians and the Italians.” A pause. “But it turns out this particular port belongs to Dante Alfero.”
I didn’t react. Even though my pulse jumped.
“Which means,” he explained pleasantly, “we need him gone. Should be easy for you. Being married to his daughter and all.” His head tilted. “Snap his neck after dessert. Simple.”
This was bad.
Very bad.
I couldn’t kill her father.
He grinned beneath the mask. “I can see your mind working. So, I’ll do you a favor.” He straightened. “You have thirty-six hours.”
He reached into his coat and tossed something at my feet.
A photograph.
Dante Alfero stood in my house.
At his feet—
My little brother.
Dead.
Silence swallowed the room.
“Any questions,” the man asked softly, “or are we done here?”
I walked out of that restaurant a changed man.
The rain came down hard, soaking through my coat, pounding against my skull until everything felt distant—muted. Numb. The woman I married. The man I was supposed to kill. The weight of it all pressed down until breathing felt optional.
I kept walking.
I knew someone was behind me. It had to be Cassian. He never rushed. Never hid. He let inevitability do the work for him.
I didn’t stop until I reached a dive bar that had seen better decades. Flickering neon. Sticky floors. The kind of place people came to forget the rest of the world.
I slid onto a stool and tapped the bar. “Whiskey. Neat. Maker’s.”
I didn’t look up when the stool beside me scraped back.
“Same,” a familiar voice said.
“You knew,” I said quietly.
Cassian took the glass when it arrived and rolled it between his palms. “I had suspicions. I only ever got as far as discovering that the men at your house that day were there under orders to cleanse the De Lange family—and that they believed you were part of that cleansing.”
My jaw tightened.
“They got one shot off before they realized they’d made a mistake,” he continued calmly. “Dante Alfero made an error. One Nixon Abandonato was happy to help bury. Luca and Frank cleaned the rest. But one made man didn’t sit right with it. Said Dante should’ve known better, age or not. He walked.”
Cassian finally took a sip.
“When the Vescovis came into the picture a few years back, that man joined them. He talked too much when he drank.” A pause. “He never said Dante’s name outright. I narrowed it down to Dante, Luca, or Nixon.”
He glanced at me sideways. “Nice to have proof.”
I exhaled slowly. “Didn’t want to kill the wrong one.”
“Tough break it’s her father,” he said mildly. “Good thing you don’t love her, right?”
He snatched my glass and downed it.
“You’ve got thirty-six hours,” he added. “And in that time, I expect her to fulfill her end of the game.”
I stiffened. “Which is what, exactly? What do you want with her? Why go to all this trouble?”
Cassian shrugged. “I can’t ask questions. You can. They don’t let women in, as you’ve noticed—but she’s good. Vital, actually. For your progress. Your infiltration.” His mouth curved. “And believe me, you’ll need us once Dante’s dead.”
I turned fully toward him. “What do you mean?”
He laughed. “You’ll have a price on your head. So will she—marriage makes it convenient. The moment you pull that trigger, your only hope of survival will be the Vescovis.”
“And you,” I said flatly.
“And me,” he agreed, smiling. “See? I set you up for success.”
I shook my head. “Sounds more like you’re having us do your dirty work while keeping your hands clean.”
“That too,” he said easily. “But I like you. I like her. I’m giving you vengeance—and fulfilling her purpose.”
My blood ran cold.
“She doesn’t know,” he continued. “She thinks what she’s fighting for matters. In the end, she’s just a pawn. One I used beautifully to get you into the game.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You married her,” he said. “Now you have access to Dante. Perfect positioning. She believes she’s doing me a favor by letting you in, and I’m holding a very small piece of intel over her head.” He lifted his glass. “Everyone walks away thinking they won.”
I took my drink back and drained it.
“I like her.”
Cassian froze. “What do you mean you like her?”
I stared into the empty glass. “She’s different. I barely know her, but I like her. She’s not soft—but she wants to be. I don’t even know if that makes sense.” My voice dropped. “She’s already a mess. She’ll be worse if her dad dies.”
Cassian snorted. “If?” He leaned closer. “No. That’s when. You don’t walk away from this without pulling the trigger. Think of it this way—she should be grateful it’s you and not someone else.” His smile sharpened. “What a gift, right?”